Why aircraft carriers won't make sense in space

Sailor Steve · 10-14-12, 08:36 PM

Excellent article. Thanks for the heads-up.

One of my favorite science-fiction short stories was by Larry Niven, and was written back in the '70s. Sorry I don't remember the name.

In the story one guy is being chased by an enemy, both in ships that use a collection field of some sort to gather loose hydrogen from space, which is then fed into a sort of ramjet. The guy being chased realizes that if he can drop a large enough mass he might collapse the other guy's field, possibly even wrecking his ship. So he figures out a way to do this, and drops a part of his ship behind him. He starts watching his rear with a digital telescope. Six months later he sees a flash of light billions of miles behind that tells him it worked.

Now that was original, and probably realistic.

10-14-12, 08:36 PM	#2
Sailor Steve Eternal Patrol Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: High in the mountains of Utah Posts: 50,369 Downloads: 745 Uploads: 249	Excellent article. Thanks for the heads-up. One of my favorite science-fiction short stories was by Larry Niven, and was written back in the '70s. Sorry I don't remember the name. In the story one guy is being chased by an enemy, both in ships that use a collection field of some sort to gather loose hydrogen from space, which is then fed into a sort of ramjet. The guy being chased realizes that if he can drop a large enough mass he might collapse the other guy's field, possibly even wrecking his ship. So he figures out a way to do this, and drops a part of his ship behind him. He starts watching his rear with a digital telescope. Six months later he sees a flash of light billions of miles behind that tells him it worked. Now that was original, and probably realistic. __________________ “Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo